PlanetCatfish.com

Hi there,
about three weeks my leaf fish laid eggs for the first time. some eggs fell on the ground. as i thought maybe all eggs will be on the ground next morning i decided to separate them all. so i kept them in a acrylic pipe (in the same tank!) with a very fine net, some airbubbles from outside to get a slight movement of water until they hatch. here is the result..as most of the eggs got fungus...two survived





this is a tip of javamoss you you can imagine how small they are!!


this is how they look when they're big (semi adult on photo)


live from zurich
farid

Interesting shape to those little guys...I can only imagine how hard it is too get a good photo of one of these

simply amazing.

great job! keeping these things is a challenge, breeding them even more so.....has it been bred before at all?
you might be the first

Good morning

yeah it took me quite a while to get it sharp, at this makro distance each little move messes the picture up...

here some of the early days. above the head is a br ine shrimp


2 days old, could hardly see that the fish was breathing while moving it's mouth




i read a article in a magazine about breding them so there must be another guy having also baby leaves

farid

Good work! I'm sure this is not something that is easy to do

hi richard,
until now i have to say that i guess if the eggs would have been all o.k. i would have had the chance get more out of the eggs...a second try of the pair (more eggs) failed as in the next morning all of them were gone and the male was hdden again. (this during 2 weeks time) i dont really know it they were no finished laying eggs or if they manage to lay eggs twice in a month...

updates soon
farid

very nice pics!

Farid, i read once that these leave fish (when adult) need their own weight in food every day, is this true in your experience? and if so, what do you feed them?

great job on breeding them!

Good work.

Very nice photos.

Any details of the tank set-up, water parameters, diet etc?

Good evening, ( in europe )

i keep them in a 80x42x50cm tank, very fine black sand, 27°C, the water has a conductivity of about 220microsiemens, ph...never measured, a 18W Fluorescent lamp, 840 lumen.
a bit peace of wood on the back, loing leaved plants...also valisneria, one bis leaved echinodorus ....(dont know the whole name) this is where they lay their eggs on the backside of the leaf. so the male needs so swim quite flat to fan the eggs
here is the male with the eggs...(i read it is the male guarding them...)
See HERE http://www.img-box.de/53904/
a foto of the tank will follow.
i have to catfish tanks where i breed guppies(this is the name we call them in german...) i feed them about once to twice a week depending on food-fishes available...if someone brings me many fishes as food they get 20 to 30 guppies...they usually survive about 5to 15 minutes...some small ones hide for the next few days until the leaves find them...they got no chance

infra red light at night
http://www.img-box.de/25131/

other inhabitants are
corydoras adolfoi, and a catfisch called LG6.

i keep the babies in this pipe so i can control them how they eat. and grow
http://www.img-box.de/54117/

here playing leave as the foodfishes are to clever get caught of the leaves...so they start to imitate (not as usual just aproach to get them)
stuck on the filter to wait for them > http://www.img-box.de/47781/
laying around as a leaf > http://www.img-box.de/29127/

farid

sidguppy wrote:

great job! keeping these things is a challenge, breeding them even more so.....has it been bred before at all?
you might be the first

These have been bred in the aquarium before (as have SA leaf fish), but it is far from a common experience.

Great work and excellent photos to document the growth. Perhaps we will see a more complete description in a magazine somewhere?

UPDATE,
two days ago i found another leaf with a huge amount of eggs...i thought i will cut the leaf the next morning to save the eggs. the next morning the eggs were gone

i had yellow slugs/snales (dont now the name in english) in the tank...since i placed them in a different tank

farid

a snail does carry a house, a slug doesn't

If i were my tank, the snails/slugs would be dying a painfull dead

hi,
so snails then
farid

UPDATE
die babies died yesterday...??? but the male is faning again. this time i will wait two days and then take the eggs into my baby acrylic pite to seperate them.

farid

i had yellow slugs/snales (dont now the name in english) in the tank..

Were these the large apple snails?



If so I would definitely agree in removing them.

If they are the usual aquarium species such as Physa and Melanoides, these are okay, and often used deliberately when breeding fish to remove only the dead eggs.

I would suspect the eggs are dying of fungus and/or bacteria, as they are used to a low pH germ free environment in the wild.

You could try rearing the eggs in a methylene blue solution, use some salt, or get a UV unit.

Hi Racoll ( )
right so they are also called apple snails in english (in translation from german)
i removed them since the last eggs were gone. again i found eggs three days ago, as i found a babyfish last time while taking photos, i left the male faning the eggs. if they hatched or died or what ever i don't know...if i'm lucky i will find some babyfish in about 5 days time as they laid aroud for about 4 days the first time. if not i will denfinetly remove the leave to but it in a methylen blue solution (i got all these chemicals here ) i also got a UV filter. maybe i will plug it on

cheers
farid